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Criminally courting Bush in Colombia Colombia should reject U.S. carrot and stick methods and fully recognise the authority of the International Criminal Court. Héctor Abad Faciolince reports IF I KNOW my
people well, and if I am not mistaken about this dear and humble tropical
country of ours called Colombia, in just a few days’ time US secretary of
state Colin Powell will receive a letter on Chancellery headed paper signed by
our foreign relations minister Carolina Barco. It will be a very long letter,
but three short words will suffice to sum it up: “Yes, Mr President”. This
“Mr President” will, of course, be President George W. Bush and the
“yes” will refer to the fact that, for Colombia, any person from any country
in the world may be judged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with the
conspicuous exclusion of US citizens, since they are angels by imperial decree and would never commit crimes against humanity. Their soldiers
travel the world bringing with them peace, prosperity, democracy and justice, never doing wrong or exceeding limits,
by killing a white for a red or missing aim and confusing
military barracks and terrorist hideouts with hospitals and schools.
“Yes, Mr President. Of course”. The Colombian military numbers among
those that may be judged at The Hague, but not the US military, so understanding
and convinced are we of the fact that “All Americans are good guys, yeah”. Just recently, on August 5, Colombia formally entered the ICC after our Constitutional Court endorsed a law which had been approved by Congress and signed by President Pastrana. In this way, atrocities against human rights in Colombia (by the guerrilla, paramilitary, drug-traffickers or the country’s own legal armed forces) may be judged and punished by this independent tribunal. Those responsible will, presumably, be extradited, regardless of nationality. Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, Colombia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, was received with full honours and Colombia was highly praised by EU member states. But ten days later – time does fly – Mr Marc Grossman, an envoy from Washington, arrived at the President’s office at the Casa de Nariño with a carrot in his left hand a stick in his right. But these carrots were green and are actually called dollars of help and military advisors’ campaign uniforms. The stick bore a placard signed by Powell with the words: “Naturally we do not want to pressurise anyone, but unless you sign this immunity agreement, Washington will withhold its military aid”. Obviously, such a humiliating agreement was not offered to EU member states, which would have rejected it outright. The EU has criticised Washington harshly for this campaign against the ICC. And outside the EU, the Secretary of State has already had the door slammed in his face. When Powell proposed the same agreement to Switzerland, he received the following reply from foreign minister Joseph Deiss: “The North American proposal undermines the Court’s authority and the principle of universal justice. Switzerland must not sign agreements of this sort. I hope that the United States is not attempting to obstruct the work of the Court”. I do not know why, but I do not believe that minister Barco will subscribe to the same declaration. I suspect that our reply will be far closer to that of the only two countries – Israel and Rumania – that have signed the agreement, duly kneeling down before the carrots. A poor country that has not asked to sign the exclusion agreement is Yugoslavia. A curious case indeed. The United States pressed relentlessly for ex-president Slobodan Milosevic, the butcher, to be judged before an international criminal tribunal. But when it feared that such tribunals could also call upon any citizen from a northern country, it began to apply so-called “double standards”, i.e. double morals: one for me, that is lax and permissive, and one for everyone else, that is fierce and radical. This subject has produced a serious diplomatic conflict between the United States and western Europe. The superpower is asking for absolute immunity and would be prepared to invade Holland if any North American soldier were to be brought before the impartial tribunal. The Europeans, on the other hand, believe in the goodwill of the ICC. Meanwhile Colombia, which is more economically and militarily dependent on the United States than Europe is, will bow its head before Washington. The sweet taste of carrots and fear of the stick are here to sway us. If we had any dignity, we would take a decision in keeping with all of the Rio group countries which signed the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and we would all make the same decision unanimously, as the EU did. But Colombia is weak (even when it has a supposedly strong government) and lost its dignity very many years ago. *On September 1 2002, the Bogotá national daily El Tiempo revealed that on August 5 2002 Colombia also signed a clause refusing to recognise the ICC's jurisdiction over any person or country for a period of seven years. [Ed.] Note: This article was first published in English by JUST Response on August 30 2002. Héctor Abad Faciolince is a leading Colombian journalist, novelist and academic who resides in Medellín.
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